Disclaimer: I own none of these characters that are also seen in Gary Paulsen's The Crossing. The rest of the character's I made up. I wrote this in 8th grade in about five minutes.. Literally. So don't be too critical.

The Double Crossed

By: Scott Curry

Manny is a 13-year-old beggar on the streets of Mexico City. His story shouldn't be told but it must come out into the light for it might influence you to take heed of what you've got and to become more thankful. So hold your seat and run to the bathroom before you read on cause you just might cry your pants. Would you want to that to happen in front of whoever is around you? Probably not! So go now before you read the next word. So here we go...
When Manny was 8 months old, his parents, Mo-kee and Soy Yung, brought him on their first ever family vacation from Beijing, China to, you guessed it, New Mexico! They only decided to go there because they hadn't saved enough money to go to Mexico so they decided to go to New Mexico City, New Mexico. They had fun on their trip until it suddenly turned for the worse.
The Yungs were sitting quietly sitting in a Taco Bell, sipping on milk and tea, eating a few tacos, and Mo-kee, Manny's mother, started choking on a cockroach that apparently she hadn't noticed before she swallowed the taco sauce-covered insect of the hour. No one in the restaurant was certified in cardio pulmonary resuscitation (that's CPR for those of you challenged members of our audience) that is except for the off-duty ambulance worker that was occupied by his Mexican pizza and brand-new Britney Spears CD. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Mo-kee couldn't get the cockroach down, or back up for that matter, and she died, unfortunately.
Soy couldn't stand the pain and terror after that deadly family dinner at that ghetto Taco Bell so he flew back home with Manny in hand and Mo-kee's body in his suitcase under the plane in the storage compartment. As if it was what was meant for their truly simple life, the plane crashed and all that survived the crash, besides debris, were Manny, Soy's suitcase, and a rather large head of lettuce. Luckily the plane crashed before it took off into a crowd of Muslim terrorists that just "happened" to have bombs in their bags and the plane exploded! It just so happens that the airport they were at was floating on top of a man-made lake outside of New Mexico City and Manny landed in the suitcase that came open in the explosion and the head of lettuce was nearby in the lake.
Manny survived inside the suit case, amazingly, for three years feeding on only the rotting carcass of what was once his dearest mother eating away at the bones bit by bit until nothing but gnawed bones and pieces of flesh were left.
Since he was left alone all this time, Manny didn't know how to do anything like walk, talk, cut his hair, take care of himself, clean out his diaper, which at this point was as ripe as a prune in the middle of winter, and get food. By now his food was gone because he finished his mother and he tried to crawl out of the suitcase and landed right on top of the three-year-old head of lettuce. It's amazing once you know the physics behind it but somehow the ashes from the debris formed a protective cocoon around the lettuce and insulated it from getting any oxygen, kind of like freeze drying it in the 21st century. But anyways.... Manny climbed out of the suitcase and fell right on top of the lettuce, broke through the cocoon, and landed on a pile of dead maggots, who apparently created the bowl he now confided in some years ago.
Manny stayed in sort of a sleep daze for the next few days until he drifted ashore and bumped up against a pier at a fishing boat dock where there were dozens or maybe even a couple of people staring down at him from above as if they were God and he was a lonely pheasant that has no purpose on this planet... Kind of like you.... Not really... You're worse than that. Actually, I'm kind of wanting to get this story done and all typed up so I can show it to people tomorrow at school. So I'll make fun of you later.
Now where was I..? Oh yeah!
A little girl on the pier gazed down at Manny with wide eyes and looked over to the man she was with. "Daddy, look! A cabbage patch kid!"
"Oh GOSH!" The man yelled. "Your big sister used to have some of those when she was a kid." A glimpse of fear jumped across his eyes like a pack of laughing hyenas at an N SYNC concert. "Cover your eyes honey and let's get out of here!" And he ran off with his daughter trailing behind him, catching his river of tears square in the face.
"POTATO!!!" yelled Manny out of the blue. It was his first word and he had never heard anyone say it before.
Luckily for him, there was a sergeant from the US Navy on the pier and he pulled a rope out of his ear like magic, tied it to the railing, climbed down upside down, and saved the child from a mutant cabbage patch death that we today know as bad. He looked down at the child and said, "That's a good little Potato! Yes you are... Yes you are!"
Too bad to press was already there to display his acts of courage and one of the camera men actually got lucky and got a good angle from where he was and he saw how the sergeant pulled the rope out of his ear and good magicians never reveal their secrets. Oh well!
"Everyone stand back!" The man yelled. "This child is in need of food and verbal skills. And PEE UU!!! He needs a diaper change, too! Everyone back up I said! Now... My name is Sergeant Robert S. Locke and I am a retired military sergeant of 43 years in the United States Army and after I retired a picked up a full-time job as a chronic alcoholic who can't seem to become un-constipated!" He stroke a devilish grin and a ravishing pose. "Now, are there any more questions?"
A couple of young female reporters shot their hands up in the air just to get them ignored by Robert. "Please Sergeant! Please!"
"Since there are no more questions, I'm going to take this child home and take care of him because I'm trying to be more giving," Robert said and added, "And I've just realized that his stench will scare away my friends that I don't want to come over! Good idea! Note to self: Leave kid near door so friends won't come back... I like that...."
Too bad that situation didn't last long because he left the kid on the doorstep and scared everything away except for those Jehovah's Witnesses because those people can find anyone! And I mean anyone! And that's that.

Now poor Manny has to run the streets alone and speechless. He did, however, survive for a long time and next we will stop at the point when he turned 13. Manny still hadn't improved in any areas by this time except for the verbal skills thing. Manny could now make sentences of his own like, "Goo-goo. Gaa-Gaa!" Isn't that fantastic? But other than that, nothing had changed except his size and his stench had gotten a tid-bit better. Now he was all growed up, about 5' 4", torn clothing, skinny as an anorexic on some kind of drug, he was out-growing all of his clothes, and his hair hadn't received a bit of mending too since he was a baby, so he now stood in the alleys of New Mexico City with his hair in an afro type position. Sure people would laugh him, but did he care? Yeah! Too bad he couldn't tell what all the people were saying about him because so kid, in the middle of the night shoved banana peels into Manny's ears, but he couldn't understand the words anyways....
One day Manny was walking down the back alleys of some buildings downtown and he came across his favorite place, The Tongo Ciki, a run-down 70's restaurant that was built in the 60's.. He enjoyed this place so much because when he was seven he banged on the back door of this restaurant and a lady came out with giant plates of food and a glass of milk.
"Beat it kid!" She barked at him. Apparently the food wasn't for him and Manny started to cry. The waitress then took the glass of milk and said, "I'm sorry little boy.... I only meant too!" and she reached down with that glass of milk and pored it down his diaper! What a wonderful feeling it was for him until he discovered that it didn't taste too good coming out of a diaper and it made the diaper's contents very sticky.
"POTATO!" Manny yelled at the lady and the back door swung open and the waitress appeared with her hands behind her back and a devilish grin on her face. The boy became confused and all of a sudden, WAM! She pulled her hands from behind her back and threw two handfuls of mashed potatoes right in his face! Surprisingly, the potatoes started drooping and fell straight into his diaper. What a beautiful mess he was in.
Oddly enough, Sergeant Locke was walking out the back door of the Tongo Ciki, drunk as he'll ever be, and found the boy in a heap of mashed potatoes and milk. Locke started laughing hysterically and didn't notice who the boy was until he himself started laughing because he had never seen someone in a sergeant's uniform laughing and puking at the same time. What a site it was!
Eventually the sergeant stopped laughing and began to wonder if the boy would like to go with him somewhere.
"Would you like to go to a Nascar race with me? Would ya'? Would ya'? Goochi-goochi-goo!"
Manny stared back and yelled, "Potato!" with a sweet little grin on his dirty little chin.
"I'm gonna take that as a yes!" the sergeant said and picked up the boy from the back of his head with a pair of pliers he just so "happened" to have in his back pocket.
As they approached the Nascar arena, the thought they were late because there was nothing in the parking lot except cars but when they got to their seats they discovered there was no one there at all! So they sat there for about 15 minutes and out-of-the-blue they started to hear a chant coming from down on the track. They could barely make out what it was, but then they noticed strange people coming out of every door that could be seen by eye.
"A booga booga booga! A latsah, posha, sporty, ginger..." The chant trailed on until every seat was taken up and there was a small group of people in the middle of the track.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" A voice boomed over the loudspeaker, which here means that it was really freakin' loud!
"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the 82nd Annual KKK Cook-off! I wish to welcome you here in the name of the white man!" The men on the field moved in a choreographed manner and formed three giant K's in the middle of the grass.
"Look up here, Master!" A white man yelled from behind Manny and the leader walked forward and grabbed a pair of binoculars from someone and began to look up where the hooded man was yelling.
"Why, it's a Chinese kid trying to imitate a black man with the afro! And a sergeant in the Army! The Army is going down the whole, Son! They can't even find some guy in Iraq!" The man yelled with fury. And then, with a flick of the wrist, the hooded man all around Manny and Sergeant Locke surrounded then and began to attack. They only ended up attacking the sergeant for the kid was a kid, and they thought the kid was brought here by Robert.
With his best wishes in mind, Robert took out his wallet, handed Manny a five-dollar bill, and said, "Here, Son, I want you to take this and run away so you can live a happy life and be rich!"
"What? Only five American dollars?" Manny remarked. "What are you? Some kinda cheapskate?" And with that, Manny kicked the sergeant in the head, allowing him to die instantly, and grabbed Sergeant Locke's wallet, ran, and was became The Double Crossed.